


Remember to Let Her into Your Heart

by ughineedcoffee



Series: The Runt of the Litter [17]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Supernatural-Season One, Winchester Sister, little sister - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29066277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughineedcoffee/pseuds/ughineedcoffee
Summary: Sometimes, when the drive between cases gets a little long, you gotta play a family game of I Spy to pass the time.
Series: The Runt of the Litter [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112966
Kudos: 10





	Remember to Let Her into Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and for the kudos on the other works in this series!   
> Anna is seven in this one.

"Is Daddy gonna be in Jericho, Dean?"

"I hope so, kid."

_I hope so_ was a bad answer, Anna thought decidedly. _I hope so_ wasn't even _I think so_ , wasn't even _probably_ , and here she'd been, daring to hope for a _yes_. She sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. They'd driven all day yesterday to get to Palo Alto, and the stress of having their father missing had been enough to make Anna restless through the whole trip. "Can I sit up front?" she asked, staring pleadingly at Dean's forehead in the rearview mirror. Someday she was gonna be tall enough to see his face. But for now, she was pretty sure that he could at least see hers.

Dean's mouth twisted for a second, but Anna pouted a little more, staring into the mirror with big, dewy eyes, and he sighed in defeat. "Alright. But watch the seats," he ordered.

Anna gave him a thousand watt grin and scrambled over the seatback into the front. She landed between her brothers gracefully, listening to Sam tell their brother how dangerous it was to let her do that while he was driving. Blah blah blah.

Patiently, both Anna and Dean waited for him to finish scolding. Then Anna grabbed his arm and tugged a little to get his attention. "Wanna play something?" she asked brightly.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You- you wanna play a game with me?"

Anna gave him a dull, sardonic look that said, _No, I wanna play with Dean but I'm asking you_.

"Okay," Sam smiled a little. "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know. We can't play Tag or Hide And Seek or nothing good."

Dean smirked at that, but Sam took the opportunity to correct her speech, saying, " _Anything_ good, Anna."

"Uh-huh. What's a good car game, Dean?"

Up to bat, Dean ruffled his sister's hair and dragged her into a loose headlock against his side. "Wrestling."

"No, he's even bigger than you. I can never win."

"You play wrestling in the _car_? While you're _driving_?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Relax, Sammy. She's two feet tall. It takes one hand to pin her." He let Anna go and put both hands on the steering wheel as they sped down the highway. "Hustle Sammy at I Spy, Munchkin."

Anna gasped excitedly. "Yeah! Let's play I Spy!" she practically squealed. "You go first, Sammy!"

"It's Sam," he muttered with a subtle cringe at the idea of playing I Spy with his little sister. "Okay. I Spy it is. Who goes first?"

"You," Anna said with a suddenly serious nod of her head. She made to climb into Sam's lap, but Dean immediately halted that with a hand on her arm.

"Butt on the seat," he reminded sternly, recalling a tumble she'd taken shortly before her birthday earlier this month.

Anna pouted a little but did as she was told and stayed sitting.

"Alright," Sam said and looked around for a second before nodding and turning back to Anna. "Okay. I spy something black."

Anna put her hands on her hips, staring unimpressed at her brother. "You can't pick that color," she said seriously.

"What?" Sam was unaware of any rules in _I Spy_ that prevented you from choosing any certain color. "Why not?"

Anna rubbed a hand down her face just the way Dean always did when frustrated. The motion implied that Sam was the one making no sense, that he was being a total moron. As she pinched the bridge of her nose, Dean laughed out loud. He quickly clamped down on it when she shot him a sideways glance. "There's too many things that color to guess from," Anna explained for Sam with seemingly forced patience. "Of _course_ you can't choose a color with that many things to choose from." Then she smiled at Dean mischievously. "Where did we find him anyway?"

Dean laughed, knowing she'd heard him ask John the same of her before. She imitated him and their father a lot these days without even realizing it. It was utterly adorable. He secretly hoped she would never grow up, never grow out of this or anything else.

Sam was smiling, too, now as Anna looked back to him so they could keep playing the game. "That's a ridiculous rule," he voiced.

Anna shrugged. "I don't make 'em. I just enforce 'em," she told him. Dean rolled his eyes in fond amusement on her other side, knowing that she had, in fact, made the rules. "And, plus," Anna said sincerely. "I like this rule. We gotta keep it, okay?"

Sam sighed an amused, exasperated little sigh, but relented. "Fine," he said, and looked around the car again for a minute. "I spy something..."

"You gotta say the whole thing or it's super lame."

"What?" Sam asked. He just couldn't seem to get the simplest game right, and it was frustrating as all hell for a Stanford-educated twenty-two year old. "What do you want from me now?"

Clearly not impressed by Sam's change in attitude, Anna tilted her head at him. "You're asposed to say _I spy with my little eye_."

"You know what? You know this game inside and out," Sam said. "Why don't you go first?"

"I guess, if you want. I was tryin' to be nice and let you go first. But I think you need me to show you how to play."

Dean stifled another laugh at her words. Usually, this was enraging, having her act like this after he'd agreed to play a game with her and keep her entertained. But watching her play all her little tricks on Sammy... well, it was way more fun than playing himself. It was amusing as all hell, in fact.

"Watch really close, okay?" Anna requested of Sam and then looked around for just a second before she decided on the mystery object. Sam schooled his features and nodded seriously so she wouldn't see how amused he was. She covered one eye with her left hand and said, "You're big so you prob'ly can just close one eye. But I'm little so I have to do this, okay?" she told him. Sam couldn't hold back his smile, but he nodded. "I spy _with my little eye_ ," she emphasized just for him. "Something..." She leaned close and stage-whispered, "You gotta build the antipissation."

"Anticipation?"

"That's what I meant," Anna said, looking slightly apologetic for messing up a word Sam was surprised she even knew. Then, proceeding as if there'd been no pause, Anna enthusiastically chirped, "Green!"

Sam was a little thrown there. "Woah woah. Wait a second."

"What?" Anna asked, looking genuinely concerned that she'd done something wrong.

"There's an awful lot of green things to guess from," Sam said with a playful smirk.

Anna raised her eyebrows and tilted her head as if to ask _what's your point?_

"If you can choose a color with a lot of options, why can't I?"

"Sammy, are you arguing sematics with me, or are we playing a game?" For a second, Sam was astounded to hear Anna use the phrase _arguing semantics_ in the correct context, even though she'd mispronounced the word. His surprise eased a little when she immediately turned to Dean, bouncing in her seat and asked, "Did I get it right today?"

"Yeah, Rugrat," Dean answered jovially and reached out for a high five, which Anna supplied exuberantly. He glanced at Sam over her head and explained, "She heard Dad tell me that once. We were huntin' a Rugaru and- Not important. She heard him say and she's been trying to say that damn word ever since, but she kept throwing it into conversation in weird places, so I finally had to explain it to her."

"I got it now!" Anna announced excitedly. "Okay, let's play! Color's green. Guess stuff," she requested with a lighter smile.

Sam looked into the backseat, since that was where Anna usually sat in the car. "Your backpack?" he guessed first.

"That's olive and no."

Sam gave her a slightly annoyed look, though she wasn't looking at him. Now who was arguing semantics? He looked again at the backseat and caught sight of the little stuffed frog he'd seen Anna clutching earlier when they came to pick him up at Stanford. It was green with little yellow spots all over it and big brown plastic eyes. Green was its most prominent color, though, and he could already tell how much the thing meant to Anna, so he guessed, "Your stuffed frog?"

Anna peeked over the seat at her little friend and shook her head. She regretted leaving him in the back. He was her companion everyplace she went, and Dean wasn't gonna let her climb back and forth over the seats to get him now that she was in the front. "His name is Halloween, and no," she answered Sam.

"Why's his name Halloween?" Sam asked curiously. It seemed like a strange name for a stuffed frog.

"He tells super awesome scary stories. Guess some more, please."

"I'm out of guesses," Sam admitted. There was a scarcity of green items inside the car, and he doubted Anna had chosen something like the grass outside lining the highway.

"You only guess two things. That's weak, Sammy. One more. Please?" _That's weak_ , another Dean-ism.

"Okay, okay." Three guesses. That was the first rule she'd given him that he could abide by without question. He scanned the car for anything else that was green, and finally spotted a sliver of it. "Your sock?" he asked, thinking for sure that he'd guessed right and bested her at her own game.

"Good guess," Anna granted with a grin. "But no." She pointed to their older brother, looking proud of herself. "It was Dean's eyes."

Sam was surprised by that choice, but he couldn't deny how sweet it was.

"She always chooses shit like that," Dean said from behind the wheel. "You get used to it, you can beat her at her own game. Trust me. I beat her all the time."

"You don't be me _every time_."

"I do too."

"You do _not_."

"I do too."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Do _not!_ "

"I swear it's like there are two seven year olds."

"You beat me a lot but not _always_ ," Anna said stubbornly, crossing her arms.

"Alright, _usually_ ," Dean compromised. "Which is basically always."

"It's not always," Anna grumbled under her breath. "It's your turn," she told Sam.

"Okay." Sam closed one eye, not wishing to incite the wrath of his tiny sister another time. He abode by all of her rules this time around. "I spy with my little eye, something... yellow."

Anna's excitement ratcheted up as soon as the game was started, and she turned to look into the backseat. It was hard because she had to stay sitting or Dean would get mad at her, so she could only crane her neck around to look for possible objects. "Is it... Halloween's spots?"

Sam shook his head.

"Are you sure?"

Sam nodded with a snort of amusement.

Anna wrinkled her nose in concentration. "Ooh! I know. Is it my bracelet?" she asked, pinching the dangling star charm between two fingers.

"Yeah, it was, actually," Sam admitted defeat.

Anna giggled happily and looked at Dean as if asserting that she didn't always lose. "Good game," she told Sam and patted him consolingly on the cheek. A minute later, the game hadn't started up again, and it was just as well. Anna rubbed tiredly at her eyes when the lack of activity only made her feel drowsy again. "How much longer?" she asked Dean.

Dean raised an eyebrow at the question. Anna had to know they weren't even close to Jericho yet. "Awhile," he answered vaguely. "Why don't you take a nap, Munchkin? You didn't sleep much on the way to Cali."

"I'm not tired," Anna lied, instead looking at Sam, solely because he wasn't the one trying to get her to do something she didn't want to do.

"Anna."

"No. I'm not tired."

"Yeah, alright, fine. But all your stuff is in the backseat. Your book is back there."

"I don't wanna move."

"Well, good, 'cause you're not climbin' all over the seats again."

Anna disinterestedly stared out the window past Sam, who didn't seem to know what to do or say in the midst of this family moment that he wasn't quite a part of after four long years. After a few minutes of quiet, Anna sighed suddenly and shifted in her seat. "Can you play my music, Dean?"

"Alright, give me the tape."

Anna reached down for the box of cassettes and ran her fingers over them until she recognized _The Beatles_ among them. She traded Dean for the tape that had been in the player already and then let Sam put the box in the footwell on the passenger's side again.

As he popped in the tape, Dean noticed Sam's surprise at the choice. "What?"

"Didn't know you had any of their music in here. I mean, I thought you were strictly into hair metal."

"Shut up," Dean said with a fond snort.

"She's, uh, she's a handful," Sam said not unkindly once Anna had finally fallen asleep, lulled by the sound of the Beatles tape in the player. "You watch her on your own a lot?"

Dean glanced sideways at his brother and nodded. "Lot like when we were kids," he said. "Except now I don't have to stand on a stool to reach the stove and make dinner."

It was supposed to be a joke. Dean's forte was relieving tension through humor, after all. But to Sam, those words were a reminder of how messed up their childhood had been. What eight year old is forced to cook spaghetti-os for himself and his toddler brother every night?

"She make you play games like that a lot?"

"Unfortunately, all she has to do to get what she wants is bat those damn puppy eyes at me. So, yeah, I end up playing I Spy a lot."

"Got you wrapped around her little finger, huh?"

Dean rolled his eyes, but there was no mistaking the fond smile gracing his face.

"I'd love to see her pull all that crap on you," Sam said of Anna's earlier I Spy antics.

"Me?" Dean repeated, then started laughing as a memory occurred to him. "You should see her play Dad."

Sam's mouth fell open in shock. The idea of John Winchester enduring half the insanity he had without blowing a gasket over disrespect or simply for frustration was nothing short of unthinkable. "Dad?" he clarified in case he'd misheard.

"Yeah, you should see it, man, he has to work so hard not to blow a damn blood vessel."

Sam laughed. It started as a breathy little chuckle and turned into a much fuller belly laugh. "She must have _him_ wrapped right around her finger too."

"Sure does," Dean admitted in a soft, affectionate voice. With one hand, he kept driving. With the other, he turned _Hey, Jude_ up a little louder and then wrapped an arm around Anna, who'd listed against his side when she fell asleep.

_la fin_


End file.
